There was no uptick in
the questioner:
When did you come of
age?
When? not why? or
where, or how, with whom?
No apparent interest in
italics.
Just when.
I get off track, you know. These things kinda…
Silence settles in one
cavity, then the other.
Take your time.
When. Well, the standard answer would be…
Now the silence puts
its elbows on its knees.
Just yours.
Mine. As if I owned my self-actualization. Ha!
Bless the beauty of a
tumbleweed:
Don’t you?
Own, like anything? All atoms are conserved—
Not untrue, if also not
the point this afternoon.
That’s true.
And so, nothing is of mine to say it’s mine. Kapish?
Miles to go, and
promises to keep.
Go on.
Don’t want to, really. One might say I blew that wad.
Nod no understanding:
What wad?
My self. Actualized. Owned. Atomic.
Eliot pinned it with
that scuttling crab.
Blow on.
Here. There. Everywhere. Was that song John’s or Paul’s?
Note the need to grab
at straws,
Paul’s.
The walrus, y’think? Pretty damn sure?
Back to the question,
agenda or no:
When did you come of
age?
No time like the present: I think it was now.
Daniel Martin Vold Lamken (2020)
